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Oct. 7. REFORM BILL REJECTED BY THE LORDS.—Earl Grey moved the second reading of the bill on the 3rd. In opening the measure to their lordships, he appeared deeply affected by the weight of personal responsibility it imposed upon him. He said the great object of his political life had been parliamentary reform; but if the present measure had the revolutionary tendency some imputed to it, he would not defend, much less propose it. He next traced the growth of the spirit of reform; its present irresistible power; affirmed that the representative franchise was not a property but a trust which had been perverted; expressed his attachment to the church and its ministers; and, after describing and defending the leading points of the bill, concluded with declaring that ministers were resolved to stand or fall by the present measure.
Loud cheers followed the close of his lordship's address. After which lord Wharncliffe rose. He did not defend the nomination boroughs, but described portions of the bill as hurtful to the agricultural interest and subversive of the power of the crown and the lords. He concluded by moving an amendment, “That this bill be rejected;” which, being considered unnecessarily offensive, it was altered,—“That it be read this day six months.” The amendment having been seconded and put from the woolsack, one of the most memorable discussions in parliamentary history followed. For skill, force, and variety of argument; for historical, constitutional, and scholastic illustration, it was never surpassed. That some reform was necessary appeared to be generally conceded, and both sides of the noble assembly maintained their opinions with the dignified consciousness of rectitude of intention, and the most laudable patience and temper. Besides Grey and Wharncliffe, speakers for the bill were,—Brougham, Lansdowne, Melbourne, Holland, Mulgrave, Plunkett, Richmond, Roseberry, Radnor, Goderich, and the duke of Sussex; against,—Harrowby, Wellington, Dudley, Carnarvon, Eldon, Buckingham, Mansfield, Bute, Winchilsea, Haddington, Londonderry, Tenterden, Falmouth, Lyndhurst, Wynford, Harewood, the duke of Gloucester, and the archbishop of Canterbury. The debate, which began on Monday, was continued for five nights, and only closed about five o'clock on Saturday morning; when the house divided—contents 158; non-contents 199; majority against the bill 41. Of this majority, 21 were contributed by the bench of bishops.
The bill being thus thrown out, the question—what will the lords do?—which had been earnestly and anxiously asked during the preceding months, was answered. It produced a strong and indignant feeling through the country. Some of the London newspapers were arrayed in mourning, and several noble lords who had opposed the bill were assaulted by the populace. At Derby they broke open the town gaol, and demolished the property of the anti-reformers of the place. At Nottingham there was considerable rioting, which ended in the destruction, by fire, of the castle there, the property of the duke of Newcastle. His grace had become unpopular, and unintentionally given a great impulse to reform by his hasty declaration, in respect of his dependent voters, at Newark, that he had “a right to do what he pleased with his own.” These excesses and a few burnings in effigy were the first outbreaks of popular rage; but, in general, there was confidence in the ultimate success of the bill, and a disposition on the part the people and the political societies, now in action, to support the government and preserve the peace.
9. ASSASSINATION OF CAPO D'ISTRIAS.—This outrage was committed as the president of Greece was entering the church of Napoli di Romania, by two sons of the old Greek bey Mavromichali, in revenge for the humiliation of their family by the arbitrary assumption of power by Capo D'Istrias. The president had been in authority since 1827, and his first measures had been popular, tending to the peace and improvement of the country. Latterly, he had manifested a disposition to establish a perpetual dictatorship, under the auspices of Russia. He abolished the popular form of government, and established a council called the Panhellenium, which was wholly under his control. All the constitutionalists, who had risked life and property, in the protracted struggle with the Turks, were excluded from his confidence. When the deputies waited upon him to propose calling a national assembly, in order to establish a free government, he told them they were not fit for liberty. Of this last, the Greeks had unhappily given too many proofs, but, though unfit for liberal institutions, they merited a better form of rule than a naked despotism, supported by foreign influence, and for the sole benefit of the count and his own servile adherents.
10. FRENCH HEREDITARY PEERAGE.—A reform of the chamber of peers by the abrogation of hereditary peerages, and the appointment of a senate for life, the members of which should possess, from their personal characters, a solid claim to public confidence, was a leading object with the French nation. A measure for this purpose was carried in the chamber of deputies on the 10th, by a majority of 324 to 86; and, to facilitate its progress in the upper chamber, upwards of thirty new peerages were created. In the following January, the peerage law was promulgated with the royal sanction. In it was contained a classification of the persons to whom the king's choice was to be restricted in the future creating of peers, accompanied by a provision that no allowance or pension shall be attached to the dignity, as formerly was too frequent, for its support. All future peers must, therefore, have distinguished themselves in a military, legal, administrative, or commercial career, to entitle them to such honour; from which the needy favourites of the court and disgraced ministers are excluded.
16. Disturbances at the chapel of the Rev. E. Irving, near Gray's Inn-lane, occasioned by a Miss Hall holding forth in what was denominated an “unknown tongue.” She was removed to the vestry. In the afternoon, Mr. Irving regretted that he had not suffered her to proceed in her mystic prophecies in the body of the temple. On this a schoolmaster rose, and commanced, in the same unknown gibberish, soothsaying. A scene of confusion ensued, the whole congregation rising from their seats in affright, while Mr. Irving listened with great composure to these unintelligible outpourinigs of the spirit.
20. Parliament prorogued by the king, who intimated the necessity of resuming in the ensuing session the subject of a constitutional reform in the house of commons. Besides the discussion of this vital question, bills had been passed for legalising the sale of corn by weight, in lieu of measure; for allowing the sale of game, and lord chancellor Brougham's act, establishing the Bankruptcy Court, was passed.
21. The Asiatic cholera having extended its ravages from Moscow to Hamburgh, the London Gazette contained precautions to be adopted against the spread of this dreadful pestilence. The establishment of a Board of Health in every town, to correspond with the board in London, and consist of magistrates, clergy, and two or three of the faculty of medicine; large towns to be divided into districts, with committees of inspection. Cleanliness and free ventilation were strongly recommended; the immediate burning of old rags, paper, cordage, clothes, hangings, etc.; copious use of soap and water to furniture, clothes, and person; chloride of lime and water to drains and sinks, etc.; hot lime-wash to the walls and roofs; and every particle of filth to be carefully removed.
29. RIOTS IN BRISTOL.—This city suddenly became the scene of dreadful excesses on the public entrance of sir Charles Wetherell, the recorder. Sir Charles had been a strenuous opponent, in the house of commons, of the reform bill. The riots began on Saturday, continued through the whole of Sunday, and were only got under on Monday morning, when the corporation, the military, and the citizens awoke from the stupor into which they appear to have been thrown by this unexpected outbreak of popular fury. The whole of Bristol was on the verge of destruction; the mansion-house, custom house, excise-office, and bishop's palace, were plundered and set on fire; the toll gates pulled down; the prisons burst open with sledge hammers, and their inmates, criminals and debtors, set at liberty admidst the exulting shouts of the populace.
During the whole of Sunday the mob were the unresisted masters of the city. Forty-two offices, dwelling-houses, and warehouses were completely destroyed, exclusive of public buildings. The loss of property was estimated at half a million. The number of rioters killed, wounded or injured, was about 110. Of about 14 or 16 who lost their lives, three died from the shots or sword-cuts of the military; the rest were mostly the victims of excessive drinking, in the rifled cellars and warehouses, which produced either apoplexy upon the spot, or disabled them from escaping from that they had themselves kindled.
31. Meeting of the London Political Union at the Crown and Anchor, and, by adjournment, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, sir F. Burdett in the chair. It was agreed to from a national union with branch societies, each having a delegate at the central council. At a subsequent meeting, some discord arose on a proposal that part of the council should consist of representatives from the working-classes. The chairman opposed this, because it assumed a distinction of classes to exist, having separate interests. The proposal, however, was adopted; after this, and on the alleged ground of an appearance of permanency in the union, sir Francis withdrew his name from the association. A resolution was proposed in favour of universal suffrage, which not being supported by the middle class, the work-people formed a political union among themselves.
Nov. 2. Numerous incendiary fires between this and the 9th, in Cheshire, Yorkshire, and Somersetshire.
4. Several cases of the spasmodic cholera at Sunderland: this was the first appearance of the disease in this country, and is supposed to have been brought from Hamburgh by persons who had been permitted evade the quarantine establishment at Sunderland.
7. Meeting of the political union of the working-classes at White Conduit House, Thomas Wakley, chairman, postponed. The notice convening this assembly, besides demanding universal suffrage, vote by ballot, and annual parliaments, declared, “That all property, honestly acquired, is sacred and inviolable; that all men are born equally free and have certain natural and inalienable rights; that all hereditary distinctions of birth are unnatural and opposed to the equal rights of man, and ought to be abolished;” and they further declared that they would never be satisfied with any law that stopped short of these principles. An intimation from the police magistrates and from lord Melbourne, that a meeting for these objects was not only illegal and seditious, but, perhaps, treasonable, led to its adandonment.
21. Proclamation issued declaring certain affiliated political unions unlawful, and cautioning persons against entering into such combinations.
DISTURBANCES AT LYONS.—This great seat of the French silk manufacture became the scene of a terrible commotion. It arose in a dispute on wages; the work-people demanding higher wages than their employers, in the existing depression of the trade, thought they could afford. On morning of the 2lst, the weavers rose in arms, and defeated and disarmed the national guards, and troops of the line marched against them. The workmen in all parts of the town co-operated in the insurrectionary movement by unpaving the streets, raising barricades, and firing on the military from the windows. Overpowering all resistance, the soldiery were entirely driven out of the city, and compelled, under general Roguet, to retire to the heights of Montessuy. Here they waited the arrival of the duke of Orleans and marshal Soult, the minister of war, with reinforcements.
The insurgents, sensible that their triumph must be short, conducted themselves with moderation and prudence; took precautions for the protection of property, and invited the deposed civic authorities to return to the city; denying all political motives, and simply demanding such regulations as would secure their bread. A subscription was opened, and the municipal council voted 150,000 francs for the immediate relief of the distressed workmen, and the succour of the wounded. The killed, on both sides, during the bloody conflicts in the streets, was estimated at 500 or 600. Marshal Soult entered Lyons at the head of 26,000 men, disgraced some of the military who had misbehaved, disbanded the national guard, and abolished the tariff of wages, leaving the weavers and their employers to settle the price of labour, without the intervention of the civil power, by free competition,
22. The Birmingham association abandoned their intended plan of organization in consequence of the royal proclamation.
Dec. 2. Trial and conviction of Bishop, Williams, and May, at the Old Bailey, for the murder of an Italian boy; May's sentence was commuted for transportation for life, the other wretches were executed. They had long been resurrectionists, but had left the practice of exhuming the dead fur decoying the living into Bishop's house, where they first administered laudanum to them in rum, and then, in a state of insensibility, suspended their victim by the heels in a well of water, till life was extinct. The bodies were sold to the hospitals for anatomical purposes.
4. Executed at Malaga, with forty-two companions, with whom he had landed there, hoping from the treacherous promises of the governor, Moreno, to effect a successful insurrection against Ferdinand, general Torrijos, the Spanish constitutional leader. Mr. Boyd, an English merchant, was among the sufferers. Subscriptions were subsequently raised for the widow of Torrijos both in this and other countries.
6. PARLIAMENT opened by the king. The royal speech recommended the settlement of the reform question; referred to the opposition made to the payment of tithes in Ireland; announced the conclusion of a convention with France for the suppression of the African slave-trade; alluded to the existence of political combinations in England; deplored the excesses at Bristol, and recommended improvements in the municipal police of the kingdom. Addresses in both houses were agreed to without a division.
A suit, to nullify the will of the duke of Bourbon, (see Annual Obituary, 1830) has been instituted in Paris by the princes de Rohan, the heirs of the deceased; it being alleged that the will, which went to bequeath immense wealth to the family of the French king and the baroness de Feuchères, mistress of the superannuated duke, had been procured by improper means, and that the duke had come unfairly by his death. The trial was long, and excited great interest, pending the discussion on the civil list of Louis Philip, but terminated on the 6th in the confirmation of the disputed testament.
12. THIRD INTRODUCTION OF THE REFORM BILL.—Lord John Russell, in introducing for the third time the parliamentary reform bill, said that government was pledged not to propose a bill less efficient than the former. He then noticed the alterations introduced into the new measure. The censuses of 1821 and 1831 had been objected to, as the basis of borough disfranchisement; instead of population, the number of houses, combined with their value, as rated to the assessed taxes, had been substituted as a better criterion of their importance. The right of voting in boroughs to be determined, not by a £10 poor-rate, which was an uncertain test, but by the occupying a rated tenement of the annual value of £10. The effect of these and other alterations was to lessen the number of the boroughs to be disfranchised, and the full complement of 658 members would be maintained. Sir Robert Peel considered these concessions as improvements: the bill was read a first time, and on the 10th a second, after a two days debate, protracted to one o'clock on Sunday morning. For the second reading, 324; against it, 162; majority 162. House adjourned till after Christmas.
17. Earl of Mar sentenced to two months' imprisonment, at Edinburgh, for shooting at Mr. Oldham, a clergyman. Dispute arose in sporting.
22. Insurrection among the Blacks in Jamaica; martial law proclaimed.
SUICIDES IN PARIS.—A writer in the Annales d'Hygiène, who has examined about 9,000 judicial inquests in Paris from 1796 to 1830, thinks himself warranted in assuming,—l. That philosophical or premeditated suicide takes place in the night, or a little before day-break. 2. That accidental or unpremeditated suicide takes place during the day; because it is then that the occasional causes occur, such as quarrels, bad news, losses at play, intemperance, etc. At every age, man chooses a particular mode of committing suicide. In youth, he has recourse to hanging, which he soon abandons for fire-arms: in proportion as his vigour declines, he returns to his former mode; and it is most commonly by hanging that the old man perishes, who puts an end to his existence.
IRELAND.—The removal of catholic disabilities has failed to produce tranquillity or alleviate the miseries of the population, Tithe-conflicts between the peasantry and police have become unusually murderous this year, and armed bands traversed the country waging war against landlords and low-priced labour. Popular discontents were augmented by the partial failure of the potato crop, which left thousands without food or the means of obtaining it. While such elements of exasperation existed, it was vain to expect political agitation to cease, and it was kept up with more ardour than ever, by the Dublin orators. “If the Union,” said Mr. Sheil, “is not repealed within two years, I am determined that I will pay neither rent, tithes, nor taxes. They may distrain my goods, but who'll buy?”" (Ann. Reg. lxxiii. 310.)
Between Mr. O'Connell and the lord lieutenant there were unceasing hostilities, one fulminating his proclamations against political meetings, the other seeking to evade them by new forms of agitation. Defeated in his scheme of procession of the Trades, he summoned his assemblies under new names-a public breakfast, or a district or parish meeting; all of which were successively prohibited by the viceroy. Unable to elude this ‘Algerine act,’ as Mr. O'Connell termed the law under which he was pursued, abstinence from taxed articles, and a partial run on the banks were attempted; but neither proved effective, a scarcity of money being not less inconvenient than non-consumption to the farmers who had produce to sell in the Irish markets. After many contrivances, the wily agitator was caught in the toils of the law, which, however, he escaped, as already mentioned, though he pleaded guilty to indictment found against him.
FRANCE.—The violent convulsion of the past year continued its heavings. Louis Philip acted with judgment and firmness, and by a tour through the provinces and other conciliatory acts, sought to establish himself in the confidence of the nation. The new election law, the reduction of the king's civil list to one-third the amount of that of his predecessor, and abolition of the hereditary peerage, however, failed to satisfy the popular demands. France was divided into three parties. First, the adherents of a constitutional monarchy and advocates of peace, among whom were the citizen king, his ministers, a majority of the legislature, and the intelligent and moderate of the community. The second was the movement party, consisting of extreme republicans, eager for war, for the emancipation of Poland and Italy, and the annexation of Belgium to France, in defiance of the existing treaties, and reckless of the consequences of such hazardous foreign interventions. The last and smallest party was that of the Carlists, or friends of the ex-king, consisting of some of the old nobility, the priests, and those under their influence. The strength of the government was in the middle class, embodied in the national guard. As a precaution against the Buonapartists and Bourbonists, a law was passed, banishing from France the families of Napoleon and Charles X.
POLAND.—This year saw the insurrection of Poland against the domination of Russia brought to a close. The heads of the insurrection had not at first declared any intention of throwing off all subjection to the Russian autocrat; they had demanded only the preservation of the national rights, and the independence of the separate constitution under the sovereignty of the emperor, which had been guaranteed to them by the Congress of Vienna. But the emperor refused to treat with them, unless they would first unconditionally submit to his authority. As more humiliating terms could not be dictated to them after being defeated in battle, the Poles resolved to try the fortune of war. The struggle was nobly maintained, and they were and skilfully commanded by their successive leaders, Chlopicki, Radzivill and Skrzynecki. But the locality of the insurrection was too circumscribed; it did not spread with enthusiasm in the provinces, and the heroic Poles were overwhelmed by the superior numbers and resources of their enemies, directed by the ablest of the Russian generals, Diebitsch, Paskewitsch, and Gniesenau. After a series of bloody conflicts, Warsaw capitulated to the Russians, and the Polish corps, no longer able to keep the field against their opponents, withdrew into the adjoining territories of Prussia and Austria.
BELGIUM AND HOLLAND.—The plenipotentiaries of the five powers of Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, assembled in London, since the preceding December, determined irrevocably on the basis of separation between the two countries. The perplexing point, in this negociation, had been the disposition of Limburg and the duchy of Luxemburg; the inhabitants, being catholics, were favourable to an union with Belgium, and the Belgians coveted these acquisitions; but the duchy was held by a different title by the house of Nassau, and formed part the Germanic confederation. At length matters seemed arranged by Holland ceding a portion of the duchy, and Belgium a part of the territory of Limburg. Thus settled, the territorial limits of Holland were determined to he those which formed the republic of the United Provinces in the year 1790. Belgium was to consist of the kingdom of the netherlands, as settled in 1815, including South Brabant, Liege, Namur, Hainault, Western Flanders, Eastern Flanders, Antwerp, and parts of Limburg and Luxemburg. The national debt to be divided in the proportion of about two-thirds to Holland, and one-third to Belgium. Perpetual neutrality of Belgium guaranteed by the five powers; and certain fortresses erected at the expense of the four powers in 1815, as a bulwark against France, to be dismantled. The acceptation of these terms was made compulsory on the belligerents.
HANOVER.—There having been symptoms of disaffection in this kingdom in January, the king of England tendered to the States-General a new constitution. The representation to consist of two chambers. The first chamber to consist of the elder princes of the royal family, certain of the hereditary nobility, and persons chosen for life, by the king, without reference to rank, birth, or fortune. The second chamber to consist of deputies from the religious houses, from the class of esquires, from cities and towns, and from the classes of landlords, freemen, and peasants, in various boroughs. The members of both chambers, except the royal princes, to be thirty years of age. Deliberations of the chambers to be open to the public.
HESSE-CASSEL.—The tumults in this electorate, in 1830, led to the establishment of a new constitution. Restrictions on the press were removed; no one to be persecuted for the expression of mere opinion; the secrecy of letters to be inviolate; no exclusive privileges to he granted to commerce or manufactures; no appointments to any office in the state to be confirmed till the occupant has proved himself competent, and no office to be granted in reversion.
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